


glug glug amirite

by Nabeerie



Category: Hoshi no Kaabii | Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Kirby - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Joke Fic, Other, environment stuff, gender neutral reader, jokey political stuff, nightmare is uh. himself, reader is A DUMBASS, reader is a liberal, specifically the american kind, the second work ive written with a molotov cocktail in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 09:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20113198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabeerie/pseuds/Nabeerie
Summary: You've gone and chained yourself to a tree. Big Oil doesn't like that.





	glug glug amirite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChingKittyCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChingKittyCat/gifts).

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, flowers were blooming, and a massive fleet of construction equipment was stopped only by a similarly massive group of protestors. What was currently a small area of well-tended environmental reserve had been purchased by a major corporation for the purpose of putting an oil pipeline through it. The oil pipeline was to be owned by none other than NME, a group rivaled in evil schemery only by Haltmann. NME, though primarily a company focusing on magical engineering, did on occasion have to go rummaging through the surfaces of planets for spare resources. 

And you hated it. You hated it so, so much when crony capitalists (not real capitalists, of course) decided they were going to ruin a nice place that everyone enjoyed just so they could have a bit more money they didn't really need. There was a river nearby! What if the oil leaked into it? You had to protect the land! 

So of course, you've gone and gotten yourself chained to a tree. If the tree is here, and you're attached to the tree, they can't build anything here! Because that's how that works, of course. If you're in the way, they can't do anything, because hurting you is illegal and they'll get in trouble. No one else seems to have gone to these lengths, but that just means you're the best at activism. 

Everyone else around you has busied themselves with holding up signs saying things like "The eNeME of the environment" and "lay down your pipe elsewhere". Others had come up with clever chants, shouting them at the top of their lungs. Field medics moved through the crowd, waiting for an injury so they could make themselves useful. You hadn't done a thing for at least half an hour. As it turned out, being chained to a tree was a lot more boring than it sounds. You watched the contractors assigned to this job shout back at the protestors, construction vehicles rumbling. 

A flash of darkness just a few instants longer than a blink blinded everyone in the clearing, briefly silencing the crowd with confusion. Said silence was very brief, and quickly replaced with frightened screams. A giant…cloth? No wait, there was an ugly face at the top, head and shoulders covered in armour and gaudy gold jewelry. So some sort of...man, probably? A wizard knight thing? Whatever he was, he was opening his toothy maw to speak. 

"This area is property of NME. Clear out now, or I will be forced to annhi-ann….kill you. I'll kill you all. Yes." 

One person broke the ranks of screaming people to howl and throw a lit Molotov cocktail at him. The wizard's cape flew open, sending the Molotov smoothly into the starry void within his cloak. The wizard had no body, nor did he have any qualms with releasing bolts of streaking darkness from his personal void. The frightened crowd took off through the woods, scattering in moments. You were left alone, still chained. The guy who had chained you was nowhere to be found. 

The wizard’s head swept from side to side. You were all that remained. Spotting you, he darted forward, bending down and launching like a snake while shrinking to fit beneath the boughs of the tree. “Well well, someone’s feeling brave today.” His grin was closer to a grimace. “I knew liberals were stupid, but I didn’t think they were stupid enough to oppose Nightmare. You do know who I am, right?” 

You did now. “I’m not stupid, I’m just chained down, and I’m staying chained down until you call off that crew. You’re not going to destroy this forest just so you can make a few more bucks, you soulless corporate jerk!” Jerk? Was that the best you could come up with? You realize with some shame that you sound like a background good guy in a low budget PSA cartoon. At least swear at the guy. 

“Money? I don’t care about the money. I just want the oil. It’s delicious.” He paused, chin tilting downwards as he looked you over. Spotting what he wanted, he grinned. “Don’t you know corporations made your phone? You liberals are always complaining about capitalism, and then you turn around and spend hundreds on fancy devices. None of you are actually suffering, you just wanna be victims!” 

“Am not! The environment’s the victim here, and everyone has a phone now! You tear up the earth to make--wait, delicious?” 

“Yes. I like to drink it. It’s good and it heals me.” 

“Prove it.” 

Nightmare circled his hands, summoning an oil drum into them. Turning it sideways, he took a massive bite from it and began to pour it directly into his open mouth. The smell of oil began to fill the air. You could see the crew behind him watching in disbelief. Once the drum was empty he crushed it against his helmet and stuffed the remains into his mouth. Earsplitting screeches and twisting sounds followed immediately after. 

You stared in silence. He...food? Oil was food for him? Did he need it to live? “Do you...need that to live?” 

“I’m not sure oil can be alive to begin with?” He furrowed his brow. “That’s a strange question.” That wasn’t at all what you meant. Not even close. Was he being sassy, or was he genuinely that stupid? Was there sort of cultural divide? Was he some sort of oil eating alien wizard? Were you being xenophobic to this alien? He interrupted your thoughts. 

“So anyways, are you going to move? They have work to do, you know, and it’s pretty rude of you to stay in the way.” The edges of his cloak tapped the ground in mimicry of a foot. 

“No! I’m staying right here until you call them off!” You had made a promise to the guy chaining you up and you were going to stick to it. Sure, he had looked at you with skepticism and more than a little concern for your mental health, but he had chained you in spite of his misgivings, and a promise was a promise. You were the only one brave enough not to run for the hills (at least you told yourself you wouldn’t have run, had you not been chained) and you were the only thing standing between this evil corporation and a destroyed forest. 

The little cloak edge seemed to stomp. “Fine! If you love that tree so much, you can stay there!” He made sure to flip his cloak behind him dramatically as he turned to leave, disappearing into thin air after storming off for about 50 feet. 

You were (mostly) alone again, the workers staring at you with interest for a bit before going back to loitering and joking around with each other. They were being paid for this time, so why would they mind a bit of delay? But a little delay soon became a lot of delay, the suns in the sky moving towards the horizon at a pace that was simultaneously much too fast and much too slow. How long had you been here? Your mouth was dry and your head was beginning to ache. The worst part was that you had been chained standing up. The tendons of your feet burned and your muscles ached. You tried to shift from foot to foot with what little give the chains had, but it didn't do much to relieve the pain. Eventually the sharp ache became a dull, heavy one, which then progressed into a constant prickly tingle. The workers had left to sleep for the night. Exhaustion was eating you alive. You were alone with the few thoughts your mind would allow you to have. 

Were you even doing the right thing? The environment was important, of course, but if he needed the oil to eat then weren’t you being a bad person by denying him an important food source? The people online had told you that it was woke-r to put agriculture before nature because people need to eat, and didn’t this kind of count as agriculture? He was getting food from it, and it involves turning up the ground...maybe that makes sense? Yeah, that works. Your head began to throb with the effort of thinking that hard, so you spent the rest of the night staring into the clearing and dozing off instead. What little sleep you could manage to get standing up was filled with strange dreams of soft places to sleep, warm baths, and heavy, filling foods that were strangely greasy. 

Nightmare appeared again with the dawn. Rays of new sunlight stabbed into your puffy, dry eyes, intensifying your headache. He swept forward slowly, putting on a show of being as stately as possible. Your vision was too blurry to appreciate it fully. You did appreciate his immense height blocking out the light, though. 

“Still awake? I’m impressed. Ready for another day?” 

Absolutely not. 

“I’ll move. If...if you promise you’ll find a cleaner way to do it?” 

“Yeah sure whatever.” Nightmare pushed a finger between the chain and the tree and pinched, snapping it with all the effort of breaking a cobweb. Your legs gave out immediately, sending you sliding painfully down the bark and to your knees in the dirt. You could see a scrape on your knee, but you couldn’t feel it. A quiet giggle from above, and a silvery hand came into view. It wriggled beneath you, lifting you up into the air. You were too tired to care or even feel fear. The world blinked black for a moment, then you were unceremoniously flopped onto the cushion of a ridiculously large couch. You fell asleep as soon as you had stopped bouncing. 

You woke up, mouth nearly glued shut and every muscle in you screaming with the effort it took to sit up. The room you were in ornate and a bit tacky, done up in gold and purple leather. Random furs were scattered around the room, one even hanging perilously from the unattended fireplace. You leaned back on your arms to stare upwards and nearly put your hand into a plate. A look behind you revealed a somewhat dry Wonderbread sandwich and a glass of stale water jammed into the couch cushions. They were gone in moments, the water feeling like it was barely enough after what you had been through. 

A tiny creak alerted you to a smaller door built into the enormous entrance to the room. It opened to reveal a short, man in a dark blue suit and hideous orange glasses. He started up at you with a blank smile that held just a hint of jealousy. “Good morning. I’ve arrived to inform you that you’ve been hired by NME as-” he stopped to suppress a gag “Chief Environmental Consultant, by order of Nightmare himself. Someone will be by shortly to show you to your quarters and see to your orientation and onboarding paperwork. Con-grat-u-lat-ions.” The last part came out as a series of spitting sounds. The little man turned and left as promptly as he had entered. 

Well, all right then. Beats barista work, at least, and now you’d have the chance to make a difference from within, right?


End file.
